Thursday, February 25, 2016

When Southern Democrats dreamed up Super Tuesday in
the 1980s, they hoped to reinvigorate the party in the South by giving it clout
in choosing the party’s presidential nominee.

Or as then-Tennessee Democratic Chairman Dick Lodge memorably
put it in 1986: “When your dog bites you four or five times, it’s time to get a
new dog. We’ve been bitten and it’s time for the South to get a new dog.”

Two years earlier, conservative Southerners, long fed
up with Democrats’ presidential picks, not only rejected Walter Mondale and
helped re-elect Ronald Reagan but also voted for Republicans for Congress.

Even the new dog couldn’t bring those voters back.
They’ve been voting Republican ever since.

Today officials in both parties worry about the
down-ballot consequences if insurgents Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders actually
become their parties’ nominees.

Both parties are pinning their hopes on Super Tuesday,
March 1, when more delegates will be chosen than on any other day during the
primary season. Voters in a dozen states -- including Alabama, Tennessee and
Virginia -- will cast ballots.

Big question: Will Super Tuesday help choose a widely
acceptable nominee – or prolong the agony for the party establishment?

Today though, Clinton holds a commanding lead over
Sanders in polls in Virginia and other Super Tuesday Southern states, where
black voters dominate.

Among Republicans, Ted Cruz, who won the Iowa GOP caucuses,
says Super Tuesday will be “the most important night of this campaign.” Rivals Marco
Rubio and John Kasich also hope to break out and put the brakes on Trump.

Trump Fever, however, seems to be spreading. The
billionaire businessman’s margin of victory widened from New Hampshire to South
Carolina to Nevada. In Nevada, Trump won 46
percent of the vote, about the same as Rubio and Cruz combined. Kasich and Ben Carson together didn’t reach
10 percent.

Super Tuesday was also more snooze than shock in 2012.
President Barack Obama was running unopposed for re-election in most states, so
all the action was on the Republican side.

Mitt Romney hoped to sweep Super Tuesday states and force
his rivals from the GOP race. Romney captured 40 percent of the popular vote
and about half the delegates – a performance seen as underwhelming and
predictable, much like the candidate himself.

Georgia went for Newt Gingrich and Alabama and
Tennessee supported Rick Santorum, who also won North Dakota and Oklahoma and
came within a whisker of beating Romney in Ohio. Neither Gingrich nor Santorum
was able to qualify for the ballot in Virginia, where Romney won.

“With No Knockout Punch, a Bruising Battle Plods On,” read
a headline in The New York Times the day after Super Tuesday.

This time around, Trump -- endorsed by Jerry Falwell
Jr., president of Liberty University and son of the late televangelist – has surprised
the establishment by winning support from white evangelical voters, who
dominate the Southern GOP.

In Alabama and Tennessee, for example, more than 70
percent of GOP primary voters are white evangelical Christians, an analysis by Geoffrey
Skelley of the University of Virginia Center for Politics found.

In Tennessee, record
numbers of Republican voters have turned out for early primary voting, which
could bode well for Trump, although that’s uncertain as there have been no
recent polls. Cruz and Rubio are also courting evangelicals.

In Virginia, while about 40 percent of the Republican primary
vote is evangelical, 58 percent of voters are college educated, says UVa’s Skelley
who suggests Northern Virginia voters could blunt Trump, and Rubio could benefit.
Trump led in a Christopher Newport University poll of likely Republican primary
voters in Virginia in mid-February.

The richest delegate states on Super Tuesday are Texas
and Georgia, where Trump is strong. He and Cruz were neck and neck in the
latest polls, released Thursday, while earlier Cruz had led handily in his home
state. Trump leads by double digits in Georgia and Alabama, according to the
polls.

Trump appears to have momentum, and the South is poised
to solidify him as the GOP frontrunner. How ironic if Super Tuesday, which was
intended to give Southern conservatives a moderating influence on presidential
choices, made Trump unstoppable.